Minding My Tea's and Q's

After legendary singer-songwriter Akon and traditional wrestling, there is nothing my Senegalese friends enjoy so much as drinking Attaya, or tea. The tea ceremony is long and elaborate, mostly an excuse to sit in the shade during the heat of the afternoon (or morning, or evening). I never got very far in the book Three Cups of Tea (he was still lost in the mountains when I gave it up), so for those of you like me here’s a play-by-play of drinking tea:

1. Debate who will buy the tea or hope your guest has brought some (as all good guests should)

2. Send one child in search of the forno (small coal stove), another in search of a the tea set (a small pot and two shot glasses) and a third hunting for lit coals.

3. Arrange all equipment under a mango tree. Wait for water to boil.

4. Add matchbox size package of loose tea leaves. Albarka is the preferred brand in our house, but I can’t tell the difference between any of them. Wait a while longer.

5. Add one full shot glass of sugar. Boil more.

6. Remove the pot from the coal, tap on the group, let sit, do other seemingly pointless gestures to ensure liquid doesn’t boil over.

7. Commence pouring. Amaze friends and neighbors by pouring tea back and forth between the shot glasses and kettle from unimaginable heights. This is ostensibly done to mix and cool the tea, and to create foam within the cups, but I think it just showing off.

8. Return tea to the kettle. Let sit a few more minutes.

9. Pour out shots of tea and have one of the aforementioned children pass them around. Guests (and me) drink first.

10. Repeat for second and third rounds, keeping the same leaves but adding more sugar each time. Rounds move from bitter to sickly sweet (2^nd round is the crowd favorite). Variations include: adding fresh mint leaves, basil leaves, crushed up breath mints or vanilla powder.

Earlier this year I took an anti-tea stand, as some volunteers choose to do. Some just don’t enjoy mainlining sugar but others make it a principled protest. Tea is a waste of money. The 200 CFA (about 50 cents) for each box and sugar is the same as it costs to see the doctor at the health post. When people tell me they have no money for medicine, the easiest rebuttal is to tell them to stop drinking so much tea. While my refusal to drink didn’t stop anyone else from imbibing, at least it raised the issue every time someone offered me a glass.

After a few months though, I have decided to give up my soapbox. Why? Because drinking tea with people make them so damn happy. Some people have said to me, “we don’t drink, we don’t do drugs, we don’t gamble – tea is our one big indulgence.” A fair case could be made that a larger percentage of my monthly pay is spent at the bar, so this defense isn’t entirely unreasonable (but I also don’t worry about having enough money to eat dinner). Tea really does bring people together – it provides perfect opportunities for impromptu health chats and it gives me an excuse to laze around for a few hours every afternoon. After the birth of his 8th child in 10 years my neighbor and I recently enjoyed a nice round of tea while I explained family planning options.

I have kept a few tea rules though: no drinking before lunch, only a cup before bed and just one round of three per day. I don’t want to turn into a tea-brained diabetic in my two years here. 

Well Done

The well improvement project is finally (mostly) done. Although the work itself did not take very long, events conspired and getting the last few bits done took longer than expected. In the end, instead of the planned eight wells we improved nine and only went marginally over budget. While no huge problems came up, I am no longer considering a career in construction management.

Thank you to everyone who contributed, the communities are very grateful and now I can sleep at night know we wont have a Senegalese rendition of Tikki Tikki Tembo. There’s a chance we’ll extend the project once again to the village of Salamata, where my PCV neighbor lives, but I think that will have to wait until next dry season.

Here are some shots of the finished wells and their owners…

Jouer-ing with the Boys

Let me start with a note about today’s title. First, for those of you whose french skills are a little rusty the word “jouer” both means and rhymes with the English word “play.” Like, to play soccer. Second, remember that scene in Top Gun where they were playing beach volleyball? The song during that iconic scene is “Playing with the Boys.”

Despite Senegal’s overwhelming Muslim majority, school vacation is still planned around Easter week. That meant all of my favorite high school boys/23 year old seniors were back in town wreaking havoc and drinking tea. Long time readers may remember last summer when I debated the appropriate-ness of hanging around with the young men in my village, but forged on in my friend-finding mission. While I’ve successfully broadened my social bubble in the last few months (real friends! women! little kids too!) it was nice to have the whole gang of guys back in town for a few days.

Since there’s not much to do in village over break, the guys organize an informal soccer game every evening. I have often joked about playing, but have never joined. Until now. One night last week I took up the offer to suit up. I’ve played soccer only a handful of times in the last decade, so I prayed not to make a total fool of myself. Despite taking 20 minutes to realize where the goals were (apparently not the usual big goal posts but two small sets of sticks) and almost the entire game to figure out who was on my team, I managed to hold my own. I stole the ball from a number of the best players (including my younger host brother, who was not pleased) and performed the only successful header of my soccer-playing life. I think my success was 10% skill and 90% “oh god, why is she running straight at me” panic from boys who’ve never played co-ed sports. I had the aforementioned Top Gun soundtrack song playing in my head pretty much the whole game (not to mention all the guys here are pretty buff so it was like that scene in more ways than just the fading sunlight and sandy playing field).

The news of my soccer prowess swept the town and soon everyone had heard. Omar, my pseudo-host dad/uncle and counterpart, often says nice things to me about my work (undeserved, but I’ll take it) but that night he turned to me and said, “Koumba, now everyone in town likes you. The women, the children and the guys.” As usual, the way to people’s hearts here is to make a fool of myself.

Despite the fun of the game, I’m not sure I’ll be reprising my role as left midfielder any time soon. The guys go back to school next week and after an hour of running on sand my legs were ready to stage a Malian-style coup of their own - plus biking 85 kilometers the next day left me fairly crippled for the rest of the week and physically unable to re-join the game. Maybe over the summer I’ll start to play regularly and even get a spot on the squad for the next multi-village soccer tournament. That would really throw the competition off their game.